On cakes

"Come to Korea," Moonlight urged me for the umpteenth time. "There are lots of teaching jobs! I think you would be happy there." God knows I wish I could split myself right down the middle to create an alternate persona that would allow me to do two things at the same time and reap the benefits of both. Obviously it would be amazing. Getting both Seoul and Tokyo in one sitting, with two exciting, fresh lives going on is probably the most appealing thing in the world right now.

People who know me well know that I have this amazing lack of ability to choose between things, despite hating uncertainty. I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. In fact, I want everyone's cake. And I want it at the beck and call of my every whim. T said not too long ago that I reminded him a lot of the character named Midori from Haruki Murakami's book Norwegian Wood. First I just laughed about it, because she's portrayed as such a free spirit who does and says things as the thoughts materialize in her head, but there's a lot of insecurities, and often moments of selfishness in connection to these, in her behavior throughout the book that I can really identify with.

“I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did the search pay off?”
“That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.”
“Waiting for the perfect love?”
“No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.”
“I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement.
“It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.”
“Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?”
“Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?”
“So then what?”
“So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.”
“Sounds crazy to me.”
“Well, to me, that’s what love is…”

"But you should do what you want. Sorry. Nevermind my hopes." I wish I knew what to make of it all. I wish there was an easy way to solve it all once I do know.